


The Lone Sentinel

by KatelynnKittaly, NightysWolf



Series: Wish Upon a Wing and a Star [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blind Ignis Scientia, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Costlemark Tower (Final Fantasy XV), Gen, World of Ruin, tomb raiding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23630815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatelynnKittaly/pseuds/KatelynnKittaly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightysWolf/pseuds/NightysWolf
Summary: As the darkness envelops the world, Ignis scours the land searching for answers—to save the people, to save Noctis. His hopes for the future are lost at the appearance of an old ally urging him to emerge from his dark labyrinth and join the King of Light for the final confrontation.Created to a render byNightyswolf.
Series: Wish Upon a Wing and a Star [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1495802
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The Lone Sentinel

He wasn’t certain how many hours or days had passed since he’d last stood above ground. His every micro expression required effort to work against the grit and filth pulling at his old scars. The bristles around his mouth prodded at his lips each time he pressed them together, irritating the chapped skin. Weariness exacerbated his old injuries as well, making his eyes burn and water as they had those first few days after the altar.

Astrals, he needed a shave and a bath, perhaps a decent night's rest.

And it wasn’t just his body displaying signs of fatigue. The metal plates he had strapped to his traveling uniform scraped at the joints like slate on slate. Scarred and rusted—just like himself. Gone were the days spent in the sun in breezy silk and stylish jeans. Those had been brighter, happier days, when he had been nothing more than an advisor, a friend.

Even through the thick padding of his gloves—which protected his fingertips from bone-chilling frost as well as trauma in a world where he could not afford to lose another sense—the rough, uneven stone of Costlemark’s walls grated at his sensitive touch, hissing like sandpaper against wood as he steadfastly held his hand trained to it. Only a fight for his life would allow him to let it fall, for to do so would mean spending a painstaking hour reorienting himself, matching his physical surroundings with the map he kept in his head.

The tombs of the Kings of Yore had been a much simpler matter to navigate than this labyrinth, but then again, they had also borne no fruitful information, either. Everyone in the archaeological community—what was left of it, anyway—had verified that Solheim’s ruins pre-dated the time of the Founder King by thousands of years, but Ignis had grown desperate. So many years wasted walking Lucis alone or with Talcott, only to find that the line who had toiled so hard for centuries to keep the shame of Ardyn a secret was still clinging to the habits that Noct and the rest of them had had to pay for with blood and flesh. Each time he encountered the spectre of an Old King lurking among the ruins where their mortal remains lay long rotted away, they merely reinforced that which they had told him that fateful day in Altissia—power came at a cost.

And what would the cost be for sparing the life of every human being left on this blighted world? For some Astrals-unknown reason, Noct’s life and his alone would be sufficient to pay the blood price, for not even the gods were capable of holding the power that he would wield one day very soon now. It was one of a handful of questions Ignis had left society to answer, but for all his efforts, what few discoveries he had made hadn’t been encouraging—for Noct’s sake nor the people’s.

Ignis kept telling himself that he worked for the people’s sake alone. More and more died by the day, and it was the only way he could justify leaving them with one guardian fewer as he searched for a better, faster solution. The thought of his optimistic twenties made him chuckle bitterly to himself. To think he had once hoped to have this entire affair settled before Noct returned. His brother wouldn’t have needed to die, and they might have saved tens of thousands more lives before humanity had grown too frail to repopulate itself. As it stood, Ignis wasn’t certain they hadn’t passed the point of no return regarding that matter.

The slightest displacement of frigid air made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and the worn tread of his right boot scuffed painfully loudly against the gritty stone, echoing down the length of the long chamber seconds after he had gone still. Ignis tilted his head, sniffing the air for that telltale cloying rot of daemon, but all he could smell was dust. He held his breath, hoping to hear some clue as to the whereabouts of what his instinct was telling him with absolute certainty was another occupant in the room. But surely a daemon or some new terror would have had a go at him by now?

There was nothing for it.

Flexing the fingers of his free hand in preparation to summon his favorite dagger, he murmured softly, “Just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I don’t know you’re there.”

A single slow step taken in his direction made his fingers twitch, but the gentleness of the sound gave him pause. Ever so slowly, he turned in its direction. The pitch black behind his eyelids brightened slightly.

“For too long the single flame holds the darkness at bay,” a familiar silvery voice said, sounding odd to his ears when it didn’t echo off the stone as his had.

“Gentiana,” he greeted.

“The fire can burn against the dark no longer. He must find respite before his trials to come.”

Ignis turned away from her, taking a step forward that would eventually lead him to the bottom of this endless deathtrap. Doing his best to shake off his dread at her mention of trials to come, he said, “I can’t. I _must_ find the answers I seek.”

Of course, given who she really was, she likely held every answer that he sought, but the idea that she either could or would not do anything with them brought him no comfort.

“The King of Light returns to restore the balance, yet all hope is lost should a single spark fail to illuminate his path.”

Ignis let out the breath in his lungs and allowed his forehead to fall against the pillar beneath his hand. This was it. The time had finally come. He had failed.

The tightening sensation in his chest indicated quite clearly that he’d been lying to himself all these years—he hadn’t been doing this for the sake of the people alone.

Self-condemnation, frustration, the desire to rail against the injustice of fate—there was no time to indulge in any of it. There was never enough time—that was always the problem. Noct needed him to see his duty through to the end, to escort him to his destiny, and no matter how much Ignis loved his brother, he would do so unflinchingly. He would stand by Noct’s side, steadfast and true as he had since the very beginning.

“Very well,” he said, careful to ensure that his voice was as firm as his resolve. He turned in the opposite direction to face her, lifting his face toward the light.

A shave and a bath were the first orders of business, and tomorrow, he would don the silk armor of the Advisor one last time.


End file.
